On Friday, after a week-long trial, jurors found Lanez guilty on three counts over two years after Megan accused him of shooting her.
Tory Lanez has been found guilty in his felony assault trial. On Friday, after a week-long trial, the Canadian was convicted on three counts at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, multiple outlets report.
Lanez -- born Daystar Peterson -- was convicted of one count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm; discharging a firearm with gross negligence, and carrying a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle; along with allegations that he personally used a firearm and inflicted great bodily injury. He faces more than 22 years in prison.
In August 2020, Megan Thee Stallion accused the 30-year-old rapper of shooting her in the feet after a pool party at the home of Kylie Jenner in July of that year. Lanez was officially charged in October 2020 and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Since the GRAMMY winner came forward with her allegations, the case played out on social media and even in music released by rappers not involved in the conflict. On his album, Daystar, released in 2020, more than two months after the encounter, Lanez refuted Megan's allegations on the album's first track, "Money Over Fallouts," claiming that Megan and her team are trying to frame him.
On the other hand, Megan has called out false reporting, dealt with Lanez allegedly fabricating emails from her label for the press and suffered intense victim-blaming from the shooting incident.
In an interview for the July cover issue of Rolling Stone, Megan stated that at the conclusion of the trial, "I want him to go to jail. I want him to go under the jail."
"I think it’s so crazy that people are able to get online or publish anything that is not a 100 percent fact," she added. "That really is messing with my life. How are you able to do it and get away with it?"
The trial got underway on Dec. 12 in Los Angeles. In opening statements, the prosecution argued that the shooting was a result of Lanez's bruised ego after Megan criticized his musical career, allegedly firing toward her feet as she walked away from the car they had both been riding in along with Kelsey Harris -- Megan's best friend and assistant at the time. The defense has disputed that Lanez fired the shots, suggesting it had been Harris wielding the gun, whom they claimed was upset that Megan and Lanez had been intimate with each other.
Several witnesses took the stand to testify, including Megan, Harris, and the 9-1-1 caller from the night of the alleged shooting.
When the 27-year-old rapper gave her testimony on day two of the trial, she recounted her personal relationships with both Lanez and Harris, telling the court that she and Lanez had become friends and bonded over the shared loss of their mothers in the months before the shooting. They also occasionally had a sexual relationship, which Harris learned for the first time inside that SUV.
Megan -- whose real name is Megan Pete -- criticized Lanez's "musical skills," which is what she says led to the altercation.
"Tory was basically telling me I wasn't s**t, and I said, 'Actually, You ain't s**t. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.' And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way. He kept yelling and cursing," she said, according to Rolling Stone.
Megan told jurors that Lanez allegedly promised each woman $1 million if they did not tell police about the incident, claiming he was on probation for a prior weapons offense.
When asked why she didn't initially report the shooting, Megan reiterated her previous assertion that she wanted to protect everyone involved, especially during in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
"This was at the height of police brutality... I felt like if I said this man just shot me, I didn't know if they might shoot first and ask questions later," she testified. She also noted how "in the Black community... it's not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers."
Megan said her reasoning was two-fold because, as a woman in the music industry, "people have a hard time believing you anyway."
"I’m having a really difficult time sitting up here comfortably telling my story," Megan told the court, according to Rolling Stone. "I've got to sit across from Tory ... I’m really trying to come off as a strong woman. I don’t want to give them the power they’ve been taking from me going on three years."
Megan also said that the shooting -- and subsequently going public with her allegations -- has taken a toll on her life.
"Because I was shot, I’ve been turned into some kind of villain, and he’s the victim," Megan stated. "This has messed up my whole life."
During closing arguments, the prosecution told jurors that "after more than two years of this torture," Lanez should be convicted on all charges, and reminded them they can convict based on Megan's testimony alone.
But jurors had far more to go on than Megan’s testimony, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott said, according to Law & Crime.
Bott cited an apologetic phone call Lanez made to Harris from jail. Bott said he and his co-counsel, Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta, couldn't find a way to interpret it as anything other than Lanez apologizing for shooting at Megan, reading lines from a transcript of the call such as "I was just so f**king drunk" and "I just didn't understand what was going on" and "I never did that s**t if I wasn't that drunk."
"There is nothing in that call to implicate Kelsey did anything other than try to help her best friend," Bott said. He also referenced texts Lanez sent Megan at 8:59 p.m. the day of the shooting that said in part, "I genuinely want u to know I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart."
"He's apologizing to Megan for shooting five rounds at her from a semi-automatic," Bott stated.
Lanez’s lawyer, George Mgdesyan, told the jury that the Canadian was falsely accused and that Harris was the one who fired five rounds in Megan's direction. Mgdeysan emphasized that he was not denying Megan was shot. But he urged jurors to also consider what Lanez has been through the last two years.
He questioned how much Megan has truly suffered, citing her GRAMMYs and her being "number one on Billboard" but somehow she wants the jury to believe "it's been so bad for her."
"You know who it's been bad for? That man right there," Mgdesyan said, pointing at Lanez as he sat at the defense table.
Mgdesyan said Lanez's apologetic phone call from jail to Harris was not about the shooting but about the romantic quarrel that caused it, and repeatedly referenced Judge Herriford's decision to allow Harris to invoke her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and prosecutors' decision to grant her immunity when arguing she was trying to hide her criminality.
Lanez's sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 23, 2023.
Check out the video below for more on the rapper's intense legal drama.
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